1). Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of search engines and, in particular, to systems and methods for aggregating search results.
2). Discussion of Related Art
The Internet is a global network of computer systems and websites. These computer systems include a variety of documents, files, databases, and the like, which include information covering a variety of topics. It can be difficult for users of the Internet to locate information on the Internet. Search engines are often used by people to locate information on the Internet.
The user of the search engine enters a search query on a website connected to the search engine via the Internet. The search engine returns results matching the search query, which are typically ranked based on relevancy.
However, multiple users entering the same search query may be searching for different information. For example, first and second users may both enter “CMU” as their search query and receive the same results; however, the first user may be searching for information about Carnegie Mellon University, while the second user may be searching for information about Central Michigan University.
Ranking of search results is determined using a ranking algorithm and each search engine typically uses a different ranking algorithm. Often, results that include content with rich link topology on the web are ranked higher, while results with weak link support (even though they may be more relevant to the search query) are ranked lower. Combining results from different search engines is used in meta-search web sites, but these meta-search web sites do not have access to inside data/ranking schemes from the search engines for well-informed decisions.